Willis boosts ILS unit with two hires

Willis Capital Markets & Advisory (WCMA), part of broker Willis, has strengthened its capital markets division with two appointments.

Rui Huang joins the company as senior vice president. Based in Hong Kong, he will be charged with continuing to develop WCMA’s capital markets and strategic advisory business in Asia.

Huang has a background in both investment banking and insurance, most recently working for investment company Temasek in Singapore, where he had responsibility for sourcing and originating insurance investments in the Financial Institutions group. Prior to this, Huang spent over eight years as an insurance focused investment banker with Morgan Stanley, Rothschild, Dresdner Kleinwort and Bank of America.

Michael Guo, head of WCMA Asia, said: “Asia represents a key area of growth both in terms of investment banking and insurance, as economies in the region continue to emerge and grow. Rui’s extensive experience in both of these sectors will be a key component in helping us to increase our value proposition to clients in the region.”

Also joining WCMA is Quentin Perrot as vice president of insurance-linked securities (ILS) in London. Perrot joins from BNP Paribas where he led the origination and structuring of ILS on a global basis.

Prior to this, Perrot was a credit analyst with BNP, where he performed credit analyses and reviews for insurance clients in the UK, the Netherlands and Scandinavia.

Bill Dubinsky, head of ILS at WCMA, said: “Quentin will play a key role in helping us to continue developing our global ILS practice, in particular in Europe and Asia, where his ILS structuring experience will prove invaluable to Willis as we continue to grow our ILS business by delivering high quality advice, superior service and execution.”

Tony Ursano, chief executive officer of WCMA, said: “Both our business in Asia and our ILS franchise represent significant growth opportunities. These appointments demonstrate our commitment to continue building a truly world-class insurance investment banking operation. I would like to welcome both Rui and Quentin to the team and express my confidence in the contribution that both will make as we work to deliver ever higher standards of service to our clients.”